Looking Back on the 100 days of hell: 30 years since Rwandan genocide

Photo by on

An ethnic conflict that lasts a hundred days and kills 800,000 people. This is the story of the confrontation between the Hutu and Tutsi racial groups in Rwanda. The outcome is grim, 70% of Tutsis annihilated. What is the reason for this situation? What is the European influence in this conflict? How is Rwanda today?

The weight of history

To understand the basis of this conflict, it is important to know the historical context prior to European colonization and also to understand that the intellectuals of the time were bent on adding theories to a current of thought on the hierarchy of races, which describes the white race as superior to the black race.

Ethnicity: human community defined by racial, cultural and linguistic affinities.

Rwandan historian Antoine Mugesera, confirms that prior to the German colonisation of Rwanda, there were no racial distinctions between Hutus and Tutsis. This differentiation was created by European intellectuals of the 19th century, who were obsessed with race hierarchy theories. It is popularly said that the Germans were so impressed by the beauty of Rwandan rituals and cultural forms that they refused to believe that they were created by someone of ‘inferior race’, that is why Richard Kandt made a…